7 Quick E-commerce and Digital Strategy Insights You Won’t Want to Miss: E-commerce Link Digest

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Hey, Big Thinkers! We’ve got another killer edition of the E-commerce Link Digest Series for you featuring this amazing list of 7 quick e-commerce and digital strategy insights you won’t want to miss. Enjoy:

1. As one quick follow-up to last week’s list of “8 Exceptional E-commerce and AI Posts,” eConsultancy listed “The Mind-Blowing Stats and Facts about Amazon Prime Day 2017”—and they were in fact mind-blowing: A 60% increase in sales year-on-year, a 50% year-on-year increase in purchases by Prime members, a massive increase in Echo device sales with “thousands of Echo devices per minute at one point during Prime Day… [the company] doubled and tripled the total number of Echo devices it sold in the U.S. and globally, respectively, compared to Prime Day last year.” Geez. I’ll have more on this on the podcast later this week, but, again, geez. (By the way, Brian Roemmele on Twitter is someone you really need to follow on this topic; top-notch).
2. Also worth pointing out that you might want to review “Voice, VR, AR, and AI: Hype or Hope for Marketers?” and “AI For Marketers: AI Makes Big Data Little” again when you get a moment.
3. The Wall Street Journal noted that “P&G Cuts More Than $100 Million in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads” and folks on Twitter are losing their damn minds about it. My thought? People are putting too much emphasis on the ‘digital’ of the quote and not enough on the ‘ineffective’ part. Why should P&G keep throwing money into any ineffective marketing tactic, digital or otherwise? Here’s the key quote, from my perspective, in the article:
   

   “The company about a year ago said that it would move away from ads on Facebook that target specific consumers, after finding that ultra-niche targeting compromises reach and has limited effectiveness. P&G indicated it wouldn’t pull back on overall Facebook spending.”

   Again, for emphasis: “P&G indicated it wouldn’t pull back on overall Facebook spending.” Today’s news doesn’t say what they’re doing with the $100 million. It could be repurposed towards digital that is effective, towards another form or media, or towards their bottom line. Any of those makes sense. Some time back, I’d written a piece called “What Can Proctor & Gamble Teach You About the State of Digital Marketing?” in which I argued that the shift to digital was a bellwether for marketers. Their shifting money away from any ineffective media—digital, print, broadcast, what-have-you—is the true bellwether. And that’s what you should learn from today’s news.

4. On a somewhat related note, “The 21st Century Brand Meter” looks at possible ways to review the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, in digital and otherwise.
5. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point you to my friend Dr. Augustine Fou’s look at the P&G situation where he states “The Promise of Digital Has Not Yet Been Fulfilled.” Augustine is a brilliant guy and well-worth your time on this topic.
6. Content marketing plays a powerful role in connecting with customers in this new environment, of course, but as argued in “Content Marketing is a Powerful Hammer But Not Everything’s a Nail” that doesn’t mean it’s the right solution to every problem. And given the theme of today’s link digest, it seemed apropos.
7. Finally, regardless of tactic, let’s round-out our list of 7 quick e-commerce and digital strategy insights you won’t want to miss with this post that asks—and answers—“How Can You Succeed at Digital Marketing This Year? 17 Great Posts Offer Answers.”

You might also want to check out these slides I had the pleasure of presenting recently about the key trends shaping marketing in the next year. Here are the slides for your reference:

Finally, you might enjoy some of these past posts from Thinks to help you build your e-commerce strategy and your digital success:

• 6 Mobile Commerce and Strategy Insights: E-commerce Link Digest
• Content is Still the King
• The Digital Strategy Myth
• Why Mobile Payments Will Rule
• Driving Seamless Experiences in 2016 (Thinks Out Loud Episode 149)
• Mobile is So Much Bigger Than You Think (Thinks Out Loud Episode 140)
• It’s Not “Mobile First.” It’s “Customer First.”
• 8 Killer Entries About Improving E-commerce Experience: E-commerce Link Digest